Dog Days
by ryoshuu
Summary: It is the summer after Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts and everyone is feeling the heat.
1. July 01: Schrödinger's Cat

**Schrödinger's Cat.**

The world was an expanse of red to Harry's eyes, heavy-lidded against the mid-afternoon sun. He lay sprawled lazily on a park bench -- now doing its best to stick to his sweaty skin -- and flung an arm carelessly over his face to block out the light. In the muggy heat, he could barely exert the effort to unstick his lower legs from the painted wooden planks.

In much the same way, his shallowest passing thoughts kept gluing themselves to his conscious, leaving him humid echoes of half-contemplations, like an acid-techno soundtrack to the slow simmering of his flesh. Songs he couldn't let his own mind finish, just in case. Harry had nearly enough energy to be wary of feeling too much just now, enough control to keep his eyes dry to the distant sounds of neighbourhood dogs barking at passersby from within their fenced gardens.

The heat had always bothered Harry. He hated the suffocating sensation, loathed the sour wetness of sweat collecting behind his knees, on the back of his neck. But something in it lulled him all the same into a state of simple awareness. An awareness that sometimes pricked at the edges of his mind, often times in Divination class with the poofy armchair rubbing at his skin in distracting motions until it began to feel like sandpaper.

Or like today, with his thought glued on "dog days, dog days..." and his arm now glued to his face, when something inexplicable was grating at his senses. It was little like the feeling Harry got in Potions class sometimes, that Snape was watching him, but when he'd look Snape would be busy torturing Seamus or Neville and Harry was confused about the creepy chill along his spine.

But it was more overt, this grating sensation, and he scrunched up his eyes against his wrist and tried to swim to the surface of his lethargy to concentrate.

There was no breeze at all, and the only scent in the air around him was Harry's own overheated body. He _almost_ swore he felt tendrils of warm magic licking at him from where his wand was secured in his jeans pocket. The sound, the only sound, was that rusty squeaking rhythm of the swing nearby, rocking wholly on its own he knew as Harry was always certain not to stop here if anyone were ever about, and he hadn't heard anyone arrive. But as these thoughts coelesced, it occured to him he'd made a point of blocking out the world for the past hour or three, and a little thrill of reckless abandon shimmered through him, terror and pleasure all together.

Harry now purposely imagined his inattention had caught him in a dangerous position, that like Schrödinger's cat, once his eyes were again opened to the light he'd find himself dead and realise that he had been so all this time. _No knowing,_ he shrugged to this illusion he had created. _No knowing until you open the box._

And Harry fancied that it meant something significant indeed, that the rusty swing was swaying when there was no breeze at all. And he fancied further that he finally heard the squeaking stop and crunching footsteps displacing the gravelly playground sand, nearing his prone and vulnerable form, steps of doom he might just welcome in this suburban hellhole in the dog days of summer. And he shrugged again and dropped his arm and blinked his eyes open and squinted up to see who had come to call.


	2. July 02: Gryffindor

**Gryffindor.**

Somewhere nearby there is the sound of wooden windchimes clanking together softly. Hair tickles at his temple and he flicks a finger at it distractedly. He is frozen in his place on the lake shore, his legs dangling in the water. From a distance, he looks at ease and a picture of contentment. But his muscles are tensed, straining against causing the tiny ripples that distort the mirrored surface in front of him. His lips are a thin line as his eyes dart back and forth, following the reflections. 

In the sky above, the rippling sound of carefree laughter doesn't carry far beyond the steady breeze. A wizard no older than ten years steers his broomstick in a spiralling blur and speeds from one end of the lake to the other. His sandy-blonde mop of hair whips about his face as though spurring him forward, faster and to greater heights. The boy's robust face is split with uncontainable joy and the white of his grin is stark against his sun-coppered skin. 

A sable-haired witch, a little younger, giggles irrepressibly and doggedly zooms after him at each change of direction. She could never hope to catch him on her broom but the fun is in the chase, the pure and simple thrill of flying. She practices swoops and mid-air twirls with reckless determination. 

Seamus' eyes ache and burn as he watches them from below, images rocked by the wind. His stomach -- not unusually of late -- is threatening to revolt against the brick of conflict that has settled there. He swallows a white-hot fury that might otherwise take hold of any convenient target. Fucking You-Know-Who. Fucking Death Eaters. Fucking useless Ministry of fucking Magic. Fucking Umbridge. Fucking stupid, hateful, arrogant, slimy, disgusting _Slytherins_. And their inevitable fucking war. He chokes a bit on the snarl he hadn't realised was rising in his throat. 

Blissfuly unaware, Seamus can no longer be. Drowning in vehement denial is hardly an option now, either. But the rage is something he can sink his teeth into, as long as it never spills over his lips. Not here, especially, and not now. It helps ward off the guilt, the pain he feels -- as a visceral grinding in his gut -- for Harry, who had trusted him and been disappointed. 

And it staves off the nightmares and the waking terror that racks his body in crashing tidal waves every single time he remembers that is is real. He sits a hollow shell at the dinner table with his family each night and knows that You-Know-Who would see their blood-drenched bodies strewn across the stone floor, the light in their eyes not dimmed but gouged out and crushed underfoot, every last one of them. 

Knowing this, he watches the children now, zooming overhead with unadulterated squeals of happiness, trusting that peace is a given and all is forever right with the world. Mam and Dad said so, "because Harry Potter lived." And Seamus chokes again, half another snarl, half a bitter chuckle at his own expense. 

He doesn't want to sit here any longer. He doesn't want to wait, swallowing himself to keep from just doing it; just rushing in with wand raised and fucking do _something_ so You-Know-Who never gets this far outside of England. He wants to maybe write an owl to someone -- maybe to Harry -- but he doesn't know what he would say. 


	3. July 03: Seeker

**Seeker.**

I try to practice every day if I can. Father bought me a gold-plated alloy Snitch, he says for a very fair price. Father is always most concerned with what is fair and doesn't worry about bargain shopping or things like that. He's very proud of me for being Seeker, I can tell even if he never says much about it. I don't think Mother approves. She hates to see me getting roughed up and dirty; I know she thinks I'm a bit too delicate for sports. 

All the same, what Father says rules out every time, so I'm allowed to go out on my broom even when it's raining and windy. It makes me happy because I like those times best. In the really volatile storms, you can completely lose sight of the ground. With that and the wind roaring in my ears, I feel alone and free to let loose my grip just a little. In my stormy solitude I can revel in my thoughts and I never even have to worry if a tear or two forms. Up there nobody is going to say anything about me crying. 

I like the wind in my hair when I'm really hurtling all-out at top speed after the Snitch. That really amazing feeling of going so fast my skin is pulled taut to my face, and having to control my steering with my grip while I try to flatten myself to my broomstick to reduce resistence and all the while keeping my eyes hawk-like locked on that glittery prize. I even like that watery, sharp stinging feeling of squinting against a high wind sheer. 

Sometimes, though... Sometimes when I finally close my fingers around it and I feel through my leather glove those tiny fluttery wings beating a futile heartbeat rhythm in the moist heat of my palm, memories and thoughts will hit me head-on, so suddenly and with such force that I slip a little, like I might fall. Images come to mind, so stark and real, of impossibly green eyes, of soft dry lips, of a quiet but steady southern lilt. It rumbles like thunder in my chest and I spiral to the ground, weighted with regrets. 

When I want to escape, I take out the letters I've received since coming home this summer. They don't hurt to read because the sender isn't dead or dying or even destined to die. I can almost burrow into the shallow endearments and rambling inanities that fill the crinkly parchment pages. I wince at the tiniest grammar errors, but secretly enjoy the reminder they give me that presumptions can be so very wrong. 

When I'm feeling happy enough, I reply to the letters. Perhaps it's more to keep them coming than any real wish to communicate in turn. I have had my bit of trying to share what's inside, and honestly I've found that no one ever understands completely. No amount of loyalty or courage or quick wit can offer that connection, the one it seems like everyone is striving for. 

But I wonder sometimes if there isn't something else to bond us on that bone-deep level, something we can only hope to grasp if we are sharp-eyed enough to spot it and quick enough to catch it. And I wonder if I can know, just from that feather touch, the deepest darkest secrets in another Seeker's heart. 


	4. July 04: Drip, Drip, Drip

**Drip, Drip, Drip.**

Draco kicked at stones in the garden. Glimpses of him through the window were like the sunlight glinting silvery on the glass, and very much a distraction. He shuffled across the grounds with no apparent aim, arms folded, back straight, and a vicious scowl marring his features. If Narcissa thought she knew this mood, and thus dismissed it out of hand, she was not the first to judge her son so unfairly. 

She sat now, as she had all day, at the immense oak desk in her husband's study. Her hands were clasped before her, thumbs pressed together and lips pressed to her thumbs. She was not praying. She was not even thinking. She in fact meant to be composing a letter, and where it would appear that she had been distracted watching Draco aim petulant kicks at the finely manicured lawn, in reality what overwhelmed her was the silence. 

Lucius loved his silence, this Narcissa knew quite well. But just as she knew this, she knew his brand of silence was littered with a thousand tiny songs of home. He preferred to keep a fire crackling all days and all hours, was never to be seen without a drink in hand complete with ice clinking in the glass. He was never entirely still, never settled in his place, so that Narcissa had come to expect the rustling of his clothing to be as constant as his breathing. 

Every sigh, she realised with a heavy sigh, every footstep on the wooden hall floors, inconstant noises all were an echo of the words. The windows were charmed against chirping birds and whispering winds. The house elves were unseen and unheard as they had been for generations. Perhaps then it was the grating of the quill pen scratching parchment, resounding as the only sound louder than her heartbeat, that made her stop writing altogether. 

Narcissa did not reflect on knowledge, nor miss her husband, nor dare to sigh again. The glare of sunlight shifted from the left of her to the right and faded to a dull amber stain on the desktop. She blinked lazily at the empty gardens, not wondering. When she heard her son slamming the door behind him and stomping through the foyer, she dipped her quill in ink and began to contemplate. 


	5. July 05: Nonlinear

**Nonlinear.**

Hermione has a bit of trouble blinking the sleep from her eyes. She panics in the mornings now because her dreams are full of feeling helpless in the face of danger and when she wakes she knows it's true. She remembers feeling useless enough already last summer, but at least she was there, in the thick of it. This summer is worse because she's alone and she's stuck here of all places and everyone is ever-so-subtly trying to hint around "giving him some time alone there" as to why the headquarters is now out of commission. 

She wonders how long it will take these people to stop treating her and the others like infants. How many dangers must they face (and survive, mind you) before it counts as proof? How long must they live before they can be trusted to understand matters of the heart? She gets a little manic when she starts to think of it because she watched it literally rip apart her very best friend and she worries that it might not stop for a long time to come. 

She stumbles out of bed lacking just the final layer of grace in her lingering drowsiness. It doesn't matter what time it is. The days blend together so that she has no regular sleep cycle. Her daily routine is shot to hell. This could be Thursday. It could have been last Monday. It might not matter since it never changes. She is waiting for word from someone, from anyone, and in between the post the only mark on time is what shows are on the telly. 

When she hasn't eaten, can't even remember eating last, and her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, she forgets for a second that this isn't the time or place for magic. She reaches for her wand, she waves it about, she never has a spell in mind. She just might even expect the miracle to happen intrinsically. Tell me what I wanted to do, she thinks to no one in particular, or just do it. 

She wonders in a half-dream state if those random wand-wavings and desperate thoughts are making it rain in Manhattan, like that butterfly in Peking in the illustration of Chaos theory. She wonders if maybe that magic is somehow comforting Harry instead. She thinks of Ron and what he would do to make things right. The visions of a flying Ford Anglia that spring immediately to mind cause her more panicky gasps but eventually she has to giggle at the thought. She might be delirious. 

She brushes her teeth four or five times a day because she forgets if she's done it already. She knows that clean teeth are all that is expected of her here. Hermione's parents know that something is happening, something they don't understand and which involves their daughter a hundred times more deeply than it will ever concern them directly. They leave her to it until she wants to talk, and she knows she will never want to talk. 

It might be unfair, she's always known, involving non-magic folks in matters of magic. How truly sad to see it before you and never manage to touch it. Suddenly she feels sorry for old Filch and it's a stark reminder of everything all at once and she runs for the loo to lose whatever she ate whenever it was. Sitting propped between the hamper and the toilet is the only safe place to reminisce these days. 

Inevitably, she's found, she will leap from person to person and place to place until she fixes on Harry at King's Cross and Lupin at King's Cross and Snuffles is dead and everyone could have died and nothing is solved and here it all goes again. Another summer of helpless and afraid and alone, for everyone she loves. And she knows this hurts, so she avoids it when she can, but sometimes she lets it go just in case holding it in means she gets angry and explosive like Harry. She does not want that no matter how much pain it brings her. 

When she starts to feel steady and her stomach grumbles in a brave attempt to be properly ready for food, this is when she gathers her wits to her as best she can. She tries thinking of happy things, of the finer positive points within all the negative. It never quite works out right. Thinking of Malfoy makes her smile for a moment, usually. She considers how much it must hurt him, with his father locked away, and it's delicious when she bites down on it, but as it rolls over her tongue and fills her senses, she finds she can't swallow it. It feels hollow and she has to spit out the thought before she feels sorry for that bastard, too. 

And Hermione wonders if there's anyone she won't feel sorry for, by the time this is all over. But she thinks right now maybe she could get a little bit of food down, so she doesn't want to think about it. 


	6. July 06: Rambling Inanities

**Rambling Inanities.**

"Dearest Cho," my letter begins. I start them all the same way. "I promised I would write you about the game dad and I went to yesterday, if it happened." Dad and I have season tickets but what with all the You Know Who business these days half the League games have been cancelled. Some of the teams are so short on players, they're joining up so they can still play. This means good things for Holyhead if they deem to let some blokes on the team. 

"I wish you'd been able to come. Puddlemere up against the Magpies. Oh, classic Cho, you really would've been impressed." Holyhead is Cho's team, I know that. She says people get after her about liking a girl's team because she's a girl and she liking to sock them one when they do, but when it comes right down to it, Cho's too much a lady to hit anyone over a Quidditch team. But you don't point out things like that to Cho. Well, I don't. 

"Montrose was eighty up and you know, what with Puddlemere's Seeker being the blind and daft billywig that he is... But then Puddlemere brought in the reserves, Keeper and one of the Chasers, Kearny I think, he's new this year, and Montrose didn't get another goal in the rest of the game, excepting a couple of the penalty shots." 

I blotch the parchment and stain my fingers trying to blot at it. Damn. "There actually weren't many penalties at all. Puddlemere are above the board and Montrose are notorious for fouling in inconspicuous ways." She knows all this, I'm rambling. I had a point when I started. "Anyway, they beat out Montrose 220 to 130 in the end." There was a reason I told her I'd write after the game. 

"I heard Falmouth are playing one of the combo teams next weekend." That's good, I think. Not too obvious. Ease into it, sweeten it up. "It'll probably be the Harpies and Portree, and assuming McCormack hasn't copped out altogether, that should really be something to see." Okay, deep breath, here goes. "So I was wondering if you'd like to go to the game with me. I've told Dad all about you since I got home and he's been wanting to meet you. 

"So anyway send an owl and let me know if you want to go. And hopefully I'll see you soon." There, that's good. Nice and simple. Oh, I guess I should... "Hope things are going good for you." Okay, all done. A little smudged and a little rambling but it's not bad. I end them all the same way, too. Just to be consistent. "Love, Michael." 


	7. July 07: Our King

**Our King.**

Ron kicked at stones in the garden. For a Weasley, he painted a rather sullen picture, eyes downcast and arms hanging limp at his sides. He moved across the lawn with purpose from rock to rock and sent them hurtling, each in turn, in seemingly random directions. 

Ginny sat on a crumbling stone bench for a while and just watched him. He knew she was there but for all appearances he was a man on a rock-kicking mission and had no glances to spare his younger sister. Anyway, it disturbed him that lately she always had that look on her face, like the whole world was made up of pure irony and she found it vaguely amusing. If she was analysing his actions now, he didn't want to know about it. She went inside after a while. 

His mother watched him, too, for a short time between tidying and getting started on dinner, standing at the window above the kitchen sink. He saw the shadow of her shape, but it was obscured by the sunlight reflecting on the glass. 

Molly had seen Bill one summer do just what Ron was doing now, so she knew what she was looking at. It made her wince to have to fully form the thoughts. The same damn war after all these years and the same undeserving families pulled into it by their scruffs. She wiped at her eyes a little before turning from the window to get the potatoes started peeling. 

Arthur came home from work and stood unnoticed at the front gate watching his youngest son stomp around the garden ploughing up stones and clouds of dust all together. He thought about playing games as a child Ron's age that were very much the same as this, but had always involved a lot more laughing, friendly faces and summer fun. 

He thought for just a second about young Harry Potter who'd been over a few times and had the world on his shoulders, and sweet Hermione who had Muggles for parents and could put Ron in his place (sometimes) and his own twin boys who went and made their own fun when none was to be found, and brave and clever Ginny who was growing up so bloody fast these days and still looked up to her closest brother. Exhausted and quickly overheating, Arthur tromped on inside and left Ron to his business. 

Another person -- just one other -- watched Ron, too. He sort of knew she was there, somewhere, but he didn't see her and he never once guessed who it might have been. In his own mind, he put it down to just more of the same uneasy feeling that had been haunting him for the past year and probably wouldn't stop for decades to come. He physically shifted his shoulders as though he could shrug off the gaze as simply as that. Anyway, it eased his mind a little. 

She was across the road, sitting in the branches of a tree. In case she was ever discovered, she had elaborate pretenses of being there in the shade with the intent of reading a book, and no reason in any case to be sitting there and simply watching someone kick stones around in circles all day, although if that was what she wanted to watch, she didn't see any need to defend that. 

She thought once about climbing down and talking to him, but it was already starting to get dark out and she couldn't pretend she'd been reading a book she couldn't even see any longer. So she climbed down and headed home instead. 


	8. July 08: Pages

**Pages.**

Something shelved in the back of his mind like a misplaced library book registers the sounds of a mechanical clock. There is a subtle but distinct grinding noise like churning gears and a sharp steady rhythm ticking by the seconds. This does not immediately reconcile with the four fingernail-width furrows ground into the wooden kitchen table or the biting pain in his thigh from where the blood pools and slowly drips like a drum beat on the hardwood floor. 

Two cups of tea sit untouched on the table in front of him. He can't remember now if one of them is left from yesterday or if he has gone and done something stupid this morning like pouring two cups of tea. If he were to suppose anything, he might suppose it doesn't matter since he hasn't felt much like drinking tea in weeks. 

He is staring at the fireplace so as not to see the room. Fire is fire wherever it may be and so he can dream of what he chooses, pacing pointedly through the stacks and pulling out only the stories he loves the very best. Dog-eared, dusty and weather-ridden tomes that, to be fair, he could now recite by heart. 

He is remembering his father talking about the Greeks. "This is irony" and "this is tragedy" and almost frightened whispers of "how will I know beauty" and "when will I find love?" He is remembering his mother's hair reflecting sunlight when she came to him in the morning and the prism of colours it created against his white pillow as she curled up with him warm and cherished in her arms. 

The tea is already cold and salty and his teeth are digging trenches inside his lower lip. He is remembering thirty years' worth of train rides. Unchanging greenish grey scenery slips past, the outlines blurred so that trees are houses are lakes are fenceposts. Nine, almost ten years of basking in grins warmer than the sun, twelve years exactly of only looking out the window, watching the world go by. Two years of trying not to wonder what happened to make the sun grow so dim. 


End file.
